Blitz My Brains

2003-09-01T10:11:00.000-07:00

I am moving the blog.

It now lives HERE. With pictures!

2003-08-26T08:43:00.000-07:00

My love for anti-disco punk songs superscedes by general indifference towards the Bags. Having once compiled a collection of anti-disco punk songs, I couldn't pass up the new Bags reissue "Disco's Dead" (Artifix Records). The title song rules. Alice Bag's voice drips with blood-thirsty contempt as she screams the lyrics in true LA punk style. The two live songs ("Why Tomorrow," "Sanyo Theme") on the B-side are, well, crappy live recordings of a punk band. You know what to expect. What I didn't realize was that this record is a benefit for AIDS research, in former guitarist Craig Lee's name.

The new school year has begun, blitzkrieg in full force. Brace yourself.

2003-08-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

A recent record binge, fueled by a fat student loan check has left me with a towering stack of records on my desk. My "To Play" pile. You see, I have a small neurotic process I go through when I get new records. Enter the records into my database, a spreadsheet program that helps me keep track of what I have and what I don't. Laugh if you want, but about half of my collection lives in a small storage space in Southern Indiana. Even a fair number the records I have here in Berkeley are holed away in boxes, or tucked onto shelves in the closet. Every month or so I have to thin out my singles, pull stuff I haven't played in a while to make room for the new. With LPs, for any new record that gets added to the shelves, one has to come out, go in the closet.

After entering the record into my database–information on band, title, label, year, country, condition and special notes (color vinyl?, etc.)–I play the record. Before any record gets filed, it gets played. Stuff that sticks, that catches my ear, sits out for repeated play. And Dave Henry doesn't have the access to music that he once had, so I herd together enough singles to fill a CD and burn him some of the better new stuff. Helps keep him current. He turned me on to so much good music, I owe him.

Since I saw them on the Revolver distribution list, I'd been going to Amoeba almost daily looking for the Fuse! and Mystery Girls 7"s on In the Red. Mitch and Marcos and just about every other person I know who've seen them have been blabbering about the Fuse! Greatest band ever! You gotta see 'em, they'd say. Well I've missed them the few times they made the trek from LA to SF. The record would have to suffice, at least until they made it back up here.

The problem is, I it's really hard for me to walk out of Amoeba, or any record store, empty handed. There's always something I'm looking for, and a place like a Amoeba is designed for happy accidents, stumbling on records you didn't know you were looking for, didn't know existed even.

Each time I went into Amoeba looking for the new batch from In the Red, I'd walk out with out with an armful or other records. The Fitts 7" (Big Neck). Amdi Petersen's Arme "Blod Ser Mere Virkeligt Ud Da Film" 7" (Havoc). The Black Lips 7" (Electrical Human Project). You get the picture. More than I came for. Mimi would ask if I found the records I was looking for and then roll her eyes as I explained I'd have to check back tomorrow. Ridiculous since they're not limited, and within a week or two I'd be able to find them anywhere.

Eventually I found the singles in question. And, as with any record that gets built up so much, after getting home and finally slapping those singles on my turntable I was left, well, not all that moved. They were good, but I had built them up so much, it was about the quest, that in the end, no record, nothing, could have lived up to the hype.

After giving myself a week to calm down, I've revisited both.

The Mystery Girls single is on par with their debut on Bancroft Records. That is, it's good, but doesn't stand up to their album (Trick Knee). They're a band that needs the room provided on an album to spread their wings. Even if the songs can (and do) stand on their own, they fit so well together on an entire album. So few bands these days it seems sit down and write an album, as opposed to just piecing together a dozen or songs written here and there. An album, something meant to be listened to in its entirety, songs that work off each other, building momentum, something that has an atmosphere and can be judged both as a piece of work itself and in its individual parts.

So, while the new Mystery Girls 7", "Circles in the Sand/That's What I Said," delivers as you would expect–great production and a sound very similar to their earlier garagey-psych rock–I am really looking forward to the album.

Though Mitch and Marcos both had a lot of good things to say about the Fuse! neither really could describe what they sounded like. Just that they were incredible live. I had no idea what to expect when I put on the record. But I wasn't expecting a kind of Le Shok jumpiness, discordant, tinny guitars, choppy vocals and simple, primitive, driving drums, all toned down a bit. But it works. Mitch tells me I should be shitting my pants over them, and I probably will when I see them, but the single as an introduction, especially after some serious hype, leaves me with the feeling of "more of the same." It needs to be louder, more chaotic, as I expect they are live. The guitars and drums and vocals all play it too straight. I wanna hear a game of chicken or get the feeling that they're playing as if they cops are gonna bust up the house show they're playing at any second, so they're blasting through the songs with uncontrolled oblivion. Instead, it's all very tight, concise, but not tight enough where it has an appealing mathematical precision.

Rumors have been swirling both in the Bay Area and online about a mystery compilation single with the Mummies, recorded live. Some have photocopied covers with the title "Fuzz Club" on them. After a bit of detective work, it was discovered that Bay Area visionary Tom Guido was the mystery person dropping them off at the San Francisco Amoeba. Of course. Mr. Guido ran the Purple Onion during the height of the Bay Area garage orgy that took place in the late '80s and early '90s.

The "Live at the Fuzz Club" 7" is exactly what you would expect from Tom Guido. Live recordings of 7 bands crammed onto one green vinyl 7", wrapped in a photocopy sleeve with random photos and a huge explanation about how the record was finished in '96, even though the songs were recorded in 1989, and here we are in 2003 and he's just now getting them out. Some are hand numbered, in an edition of 777.

As crazy as it is, the record is also mostly good. Sure the recording is lousy, but no worse than a lot of other records released at the time, including Mummies records. Other bands include the Driving Wheels, Vanilla Whores, Pussy Hounds (featuring Mike Lucas), Wild Breed, Barnaby Street Lamp Post, and the Gaping Wounds. Good luck finding a copy.

Another blast from San Francisco's illustrious past, Pure Filth Records makes a return with a release by a band called The Vaticans. As you might expect, Shane White is in the band, handling bass duty. They have a strong Bell Rays/Detroit Cobras sound going, heavy '60s soul/R&B influence with solid, smoky female vocals. The kind of stuff that, if people in the Bay Area actually danced, would have the floor on fire. The A-side "Commotion" sounds like it could've been a product of the Memphis soul song factory, while the flip "Talking About You," has a more modern, poppy feel, with a catchy as hell chorus. Unlike the Detroit Cobras, the Fondas or lotsa similar bands, these two introductory songs are originals. Bonus points.

***

Next time: Disco's Dead! and How Sean Marciniak saved my sorry ass as I hung on the face of a cliff, forty feet above my rocky ocean grave!

2003-08-20T09:02:00.000-07:00

After a weekend of gorging on music – three(!) trips to Amoeba and two shows – the ringing in my ears still hasn't completely cleared. And halfway through the last week before school kicks in, I feel like I'm walking through a dense fog. Kind of listless, kind of pulling my hair out because I know I have a ton of shit to do, so much that I can't figure out where to start. So I wander.

Monday night Thee Parkside and the Bottom of the Hill both hosted a benefit show for the families of the Exploding Hearts. As anyone reading this probably knows, three members of the Exploding Hearts died when their van crashed, coming home from San Francisco. I never got to see the Exploding Hearts -- I was out of town when they played here -- but their album and singles spent a lot of time on my turntable. They still do.

The completely line-up of bands remained somewhat of a mystery until we walked up to the door of the Parkside and saw the roster. Adam Carlson Band. Deadly Weapons. Clorox Girls. Husbands. The Sermon. Tina and the Total Babes. The FM Knives were originally listed to play, but didn't make the final line-up.

I was looking forward to seeing Tina and the Total Babes more than any other band. Their first Bay Area show. Not only did I want to see them because their album is incredible, but I heard the Total Babes on the album weren't the same buncha Babes playing live. It could be hit or miss.

Aside from Tina and her Babes, the unknown of the bunch – the Adam Carlson Band – piqued my interest more than any other band. Jason Morgan, frontman for Harold Ray Live, told me one day about his new band. A power-pop band. Jason Morgan knows power-pop. His last power-pop band, the Close-Ups were good, but not great. This time around, with a few years singing for Harold Ray under his belt, I imagined his new band would nail the power-pop sound good.

As the Adam Carlson Band set up I worried about two things: they might head down the watery, limp vein of pop, and/or they might, uh, not be all that tight, given that it was their first show ever.

They put both fears quickly to rest. They were tight, they leaned heavily on the POWER side of power-pop. They even did a Billy Squier cover. At the end of the set, I had a new favorite Bay Area band. They made me wish I was still putting out records. On the way home I kept thinking about how great it would be to put out a double-7" with Harold Ray Live and the Adam Carlson Band. If I can't do it, maybe I can talk another label into it.

The rest of the show was okay, but not incredible. The Clorox Girls were good, but would have been better if they played at the smaller, more intimate Parkside. All the hype around the Husbands set my expectations unrealistically high. Lots of walking back and forth between the Parkside and Bottom of the Hill. Got to see a lot of people, which always makes a show more enjoyable. And I met Blank Generation writer Steve Greenback, a great guy.

No one really talked about the fact that the show was a benefit for the families of the Exploding Hearts. It was just another show, which I found a bit unsettling. I wasn't looking forward to an awkward, teary-eyed remembrance, but it just wasn't even mentioned. Too cool for school I guess.

And yes, Tina and the Total Babes were incredible. They only played six or seven songs, but each was as good as you might imagine. Six people played in the backing band, including a back-up singer and three guitars, one of which included Terry from the Exploding Hearts. Seeing him take the stage, I half expected an Exploding Hearts cover. Maybe that would have been too weird for him…and for the audience.

Driving over the Bay Area bridge, traffic slowed to a crawl, bottle-necked into a single lane of traffic, Mimi grilled me on why I don't write more, why I don't try to do another zine. Needling questions that make me squirm. I try to explain that I don't have the time, the energy or the motivation, let alone the money. She persists. I tell her I need a buffer of mental space, that I can't just sit down and start writing. It has to build up, boil over and spill out. But her questioning gets the rusty gears in my head moving, thinking of ideas, for whole zines and individual story ideas. Part of the problem is I have become incredibly self-critical. Reading so many shithole zines, I can't help be think "who cares what I have to say?" Mimi counters that I am a good writer, unlike most people who do zines. "A travel zine!" she says. "You've been around the world, around the States. A travel zine!" Still, I'm unconvinced. Besides, photography is really my passion now.

With that in mind, I have been chewing on doing a new zine, based on a tour I went on with a band in 2000. Since 1997 I have wanted to do a photo project about punk bands on tour. It's a world, a life that is so entirely foreign to most of the population. I'd spend a year or two, basically just going on tour with bands. Head out with one band, spend a few weeks with them, meet up with another band while on the road and take off with them for a few weeks. And so on. I'm more interested in the stuff that happens between the shows. I love taking live band photos, but for this, it would be more about the driving, wandering new towns, meeting new people, breaking down, hooking up. Tensions and smells in the van. It would be about the people who put on and go to shows in places you'd never expect, where sometimes only five people come out to see the band.

Anyway, this zine, if I did it, would be a first step towards that goal. Maybe over winter break this year, if plans to return to India don't work out, I'll find a band to go on tour with to push it further. And if things really fall apart and I can't get myself overseas after graduation in May, I can spend the summer criss-crossing the country with bands.

If you're in a band, and would be willing to let me tag along, photographing your tour, let me know.

***

The other show of the weekend took place at a co-op (like a student-run dorm) on the UC Berkeley campus. The co-op shows can get rowdy, as you might expect when you get a room full of people barely legally able to drink who are pissed outta their heads and, for the most part, don't eat and breath punk, at least not smaller shows like these. Their inebriated enthusiasm can either be contagious or totally fucking annoying. Sometimes it is cool being at a show were people – gasp – move around and haven't been totally blunted into a bunch jaded head-nodders. After getting kicked in the head a few times by people trying to "crowd surf" the group of 20 or 30 people standing around, my own jaded streak rears its head in a nasty way.

The Mirrors opened the show. This new line-up includes Greg from the original Texas incarnation along with Oscar from the Rocknroll Adventure Kids. Greg sits in a chair, Oscar stands around and the drummer does his thing. They admittedly aren't the most exciting band to watch, but musically, they are H-O-T. A killer dense '60 psych sound with a real strong bite of Velvet Underground and a touch garage blues.

Japanese bands take the cake. They always look cool as hell and really commit themselves to their live show. The Jailbirds (great band name! unfortunately, there is also a German band with the same name) fit this stereotype. Sharp dressers, down to the vicious sunglasses, and hyper-heavy rock sound that drove the kids nuts. If you've seen Teengenerate, Guitar Wolf, the Gyogun Rends, Gasoline or any other top-tier Japanese band, you might write off the Jailbirds as more of the same. But the people at the co-op , most of whom have probably never been blasted away by Guitar Wolf, had their world turned upside down by the energy unleashed by the Jailbirds.

Once Greg stopped fucking around with the Zodiac Killers video he was trying to show, they set off into what was the best Zodiac Killers show I've seen. With ever new line up Greg says, "This is the best line-up yet!" This time he's right. The sound sucked, but they blasted through the set, swiping snide jokes at the audience of college kids (myself included) in between the blistering short two-minute songs. It was the most I've seen Greg move at a show since the Rip Offs. If their set was any indication of things to come on their new album, it'll be a doosy.

***

Next update, I will review these records, maybe more:

Neon Maniacs – Nation Rehabilitation 7" (Puke N Vomit)
Mr. California & the State Police – 10 Song Seven Inch Record 45 RPM! 7" (Scarey)
Fitts – I Have to Laugh (When I See You Hurt) 7" (Big Neck)
Fuse! – Breaker! Breaker! 7" (In the Red)
Black Lips – Freakout 7" (Electrical Human Project)
Amdi Petersen Arme – Blod Ser Mere Virkelict Ud Da Film 7" (Havoc)
Mystery Girls – Circles in the Sand/That's What I Said 7" (In the Red)

2003-08-15T13:06:00.000-07:00

With just about one week left before school starts again, I have been spending as much time as possible in my darkroom, catching up on printing. Old and new photos. Sheets and sheets of negatives, mostly of bands, have gone neglected for years. Shoot. Develop. File. Someday I'd like to do something with the photos, maybe put together a book of band pictures. Slowly moving towards that goal, I am methodically printing 5x7 roughs. Almost ten years of photos. Slow and low, that is the temp-o. Yo.

Listening to books on tape helps pass time as spend hours in my small, closet darkroom. Lately my mind has been on the sea. Listening to the Book On Tape version of The Perfect Storm, devouring the article in the new issue of Atlantic Monthly about modern day piracy and the utter lawlessness of the sea, searching the web for information on passenger frieghters. All this stems from a longstanding fascination with life on the sea, but that slow burning fire was stoked by my brother's recent completion of marinetime academy and his early foray into the world of the merchant marines. Not a profession I would want, but if I could cook up a decent story proposal, I'd love to spend a year or two at sea, photographing, documenting the life.

Friday afternoon. Lot of record stuff to take care of today. And after a planned trip to Amoeba this afternoon, their might be more still. Let's get busy.

Final Solutions – CD-R (Contaminated)
The Final Solutions debut 7" on Therapeutic has widely been hailed as an early contender for one of the best 7"s of the year. This CD-R ups the ante. A short-circuit, head-on concussion of Reatards red-faced fury and the Lost Sounds' brain-sizzling synth action. You have Jay Reatard at center stage, along with four other guys (Zac, Justice, Quinn Q, Tom) plummelling seven songs into sumbmission, Memphis style. The first song, "Deep 6," is bathed in heavy, sweaty electronics, dirt under the fingers electronics, and is likely to inspire flashbacks in those of you who got the pleasure of seeing the Reatards in action. It sounds like Jay's gonna jump outta your speakers and throttle you good. The next three songs, "Chain, Chain, Chain," "I See You On Path," and "Disco Eraser" are a bit leaner, but definitely not an less mean. That is, they have a vicious starkness that you really notice as "Deep Six" goes into "Chain, Chain, Chain." By the time the boys get to "Russian Interpretor," the vocals and guitars are again swimming in thick fuzz and distortion. And this is how we are taken out in the last two songs, "This Ain't No FS," and "Fuzz Pedal." The last, though still layered in humid noise, still moves at a choppy, catchy pace. Short and sweet. Unfortunately, this CD-R is limited to a scant 25 copies (as all Contaminated CD-Rs). But maybe some brave label out there will step up to release this on vinyl. Could we be so lucky?

Henry Fiats Open Sore – I Was a Teenage Pretty Boy 7" (Ken Rock)
One of my all-time favorites, the bandages Swedes are back with another ass-blistering four songs. Continuing their path towards becoming total rock hippies, Sir Henry and the boys have slowed the songs down a little (just a little) and managed to massage in a little more melody than usual. But that's what has always made HFOS so close to my heart – besides their warmth, compassion and love of God – their songs have the feeling of utter recklessness, like any second they're gonna topple over on themselves and on you; they're fast, but held together tight with a punishing, yet totally melodic kingpin. I can't get enough. For those of you who skate, listening to Henry Fiats is like bombing a BIG fucking hill, going so fast that you HAVE to hang out, you can't bail, even though your eyes are watering, you can't see and you've got speed wobbles so bad you feel like you're gonna get pitched any second. If you fall, you die. That's what this single is like. For those of you who don't skate, hang on tight and enjoy the fucking ride.

Tokyo Knives 7" (Ken Rock)
Add this up: Martin from Savage Records, Jonas (Don Wanna) from Henry Fiats, Macke from the Turpentines and Tomoko, who puts the "Tokyo" in the Tokyo Knives. The sum: an amazing Swedish band, experts all in fiesty garage punk. On this, thier second single, the Tokyo Knives open and close with covers ("Futsu Kayoi" by Kamen Riders and the Victims' "Flipped Out Over You"), sandwiching a brilliantly stupid song, "Smell My Ass, It Sucks" between the two. All three squeezed on to one side the record. All I gotta say is: "MORE! I Want MORE!!!" If you missed their debut (and now out of print) 7" (on Wrench Records), makes haste and track a copy down!

2003-08-10T08:19:00.000-07:00

Changed the layout of the blog so I could include links and easier access to the archives. The archives still have the dapper tuxedo layout.
Real update coming soon.

LISTENING:
NPR Weekend Edition

2003-08-08T19:15:00.000-07:00

Fucking Hell. Richard Hell that is. Sir Blank Generation has penned a review of the new Lester Bangs book in the latest Village Voice.

Actually, reading the review, Hell doesn't have a lot to say about Bangs that hasn't been said over and over. The piece is more misty-eyed rememberance than book review. And it adds fuel to the fire that Hell is about as good of a writer as he is a musician, which is to say he's a better junkie than he is a writer or musician. Hell's review consists only of his closing paragraph:

If you like Lester, you'll like this new book. It's a lot like the other one but it has more Miles Davis and Rolling Stones than Lou Reed and Iggy and some big chunks of autobiographical writings.

Hell's article aside, I can't fucking wait for this book, titled Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader, to come out. August 12th is the release date. Before reading Psychotic Reaction... I completely avoided collections of music writing.k I think the problem was someone suggested I pick up a Greil Marcus book. Reading a few pages left me numb. How could anyone write so blandly about something fundamentally based on fun? I was a young flower discovering the world. That book caused me to shrivel up, turn up my petals and steer clear of anything resembling rock journalism.

Mimi put a copy of Psychotic Reaction... in my hands. Continuing my lame flower analogy, it was the rain and sunshine both, causing me to open up and devour all I could by Bangs (yeah, yeah, I know Marcus edited Psychotic Reaction). You've heard the reasons people like Bangs, hell you probably like Bangs yourself. So when I say his writing is as much fun as listening to the music itself, you know what I'm talking about. I mean, he was a guy whose passion for music came through in his writing, even if it was helped along by swilling cough syrup. While other writers spend time dissecting an album, a song or a band, Bangs just plugs you and takes you along for the ride he's on while listening to the record. Good or bad. None compare.

Friday night, listening to the Exploding Hearts. I have to be up early tomorrow to head out to Alcatraz. It's the annual guard/inmate reunion. I am going to shoot it for my prison project, though it doesn't really relate completely. Still, it should be a good time. Maybe afterwards I'll hit up a few of the remaining small record stores in SF. Amoeba is great, but it really forced out a lot of great smaller stores that made for a full day of record trolling. In the few that are left, there are still some good finds to be had. Everybody has heard about Martin of Limp Wrist finding not one, but TWO copies of the Freestone 7" for a few bucks each. I myself have turned up a Lewd 7" and, most profitable, a stack of the White Stripes' first two 7"s. Maybe I'll get lucky tomorrow. I'll let you know.

Remember...August 12. Lester Bangs. Oh, and Revolver has a bunch of new In the Red stuff listed in the new update (see my post from a few days ago), inlcuding the Fuse! and Msytery Girls 7"s. Can't wait!

2003-08-07T18:55:00.000-07:00

Have you worn your old Radio X Records thin? Know all the words to Party at Steve's House a little too well? Lookin' for a new lo-fi fix. Something unhinged, a bit sloppy but still competent, and most of all, fun? Part Supercharger, and a whole lotta Mummies, the Flying Dutchmen's debut album, Caveman Sessions (Boom Boom Records) is gonna smoke your ass.

These Seattlites (who come from bands such as the Amazing Spider-Men, the Zombie IV and the Sultanas) have got a serious jonesin' for the righteous South City Sound, the music that made the Bay Area numero uno for crazed kids who cut their teeth on Back From the Grave and other noxious noise. I mean, stepping right past the music, which, no shit, sounds like a lost Mummies rehearsal tape or something, they have the look and whole schtick down PAT. Thick Estrus Records/Art Chantry coming head-to-head with the no-nonesense black and white photocopy Radio X/early Rip Off aesthetic. Liner notes written with a typerwrite by "J.P. 'Butter-Lips' Guttrock," the tantalizing splash of words like "Raw!" "Primitive!" and "Ook! Ook! Ook" on the photocopied cover, not to mention the liberal use of images you might expect to find on a Sin Alley comp. The look, they gotta it down.

But in the end, what matters is what's on the platter, right? Right. Any jerk with a photocopy machine and a keen record collection to study can pull off putting together a nice look record. But not just any jerk can pull off the instrumentation of the sound AND the style. From the get-go, the Dutchmen get things cookin' right with "On Fire," a tune that lives up to its name if a song ever has. I mean geezus! They don't fuck around...well, okay, they do fuck around. A lot. The banter that fills the space between the songs gives proof that these goofs don't take themselves too serious, which is really what makes it all work. They're having fun, you can tell, and its an infectious, really loose kinda fun. Not only have they nailed the look and the sound, the Flying Dutchmen pinned the most elusive element of this wily genre of music -- a true grit, don't give a shit, uncontrolled sense of fun. F-U-N. A lotta bands have faked it, or almost got it, but I can smell a turd a mile away, and this ain't no turd.

I'm sure some old burnt-out, jaded piece of shit out there will dismiss this 12 years too late, chalk it up to one of the many imitators that's come along, or brush it off with snide "been there, done that." They're missing out. While there have been a lot of imitators, and there are parts of this that really sound an awful lot like the Mummies (not a bad thing), I say the Flying Dutchmen are worth your time and a stack of dimes for the LP (which is better than the single, though it ain't shabby). I can't wait to catch 'em live. I'm sure they put on a helluva show.

Write and tell 'em icki sent you.

Boom Boom Records
20720 Southeast 192nd St.
Renton, WA 98058 USA

2003-08-05T08:32:00.000-07:00

In the Red Records continues to reign supreme, rule as king of the record label hill. A brief look at the website leaves me hungry in anticipation for the records promised as Coming Soon:

THE DIRTBOMBS -- Dangerous Magical Noise LP/CD
BLACKTOP -- I've Got A Baaad Feelin' About This the complete recordings CD
THE FUSE! -- The Fisherman's Wife LP/CD

also coming soon...
THE MYSTERY GIRLS Circles In The Sand 7", THE FUSE! Breaker Breaker 7", THE DEADLY SNAKES Double 7", THE DIRTBOMBS Dangerous Magical Noise LP/CD, THE REIGNING SOUND Too Much Guitar LP/CD, THE PONYS 7"

and new albums from
THE PONYS, THE MYSTERY GIRLS & THE HUNCHES.

I mean really! Larry, you make a young boy's heart flutter. By the way, the Fuse! single (and album) is reported to be just absolutely stunning, one of the best new bands around from what I've heard.

With the new website updated, it's time to pry myself away from the computer and get back into the darkroom. I'm trying to get caught up on printing band photos. It's a slow, slow process.

2003-08-04T09:40:00.000-07:00

A weekend that left my throat thick with mucus. Monday morning, coughing, trying to clear my throat. The large cup of hot, black coffee that I'm sucking down helps, but not enough.

The Diskords came to town this weekend. This group of 13 and 14 year old shook the jadedness out of the Bay Area, at least for a few days. Sure, they're a bit of a novelty, but the Diskords hammer any naysayers with a loud, great live show. And the teaser of their new album played on the latest MRR Radio show leaves me waiting with baited breath. What's more, the Diskords picked out some great music to play on the show and Paul Curran interviews the lads. Seriously, they're better than a lot of bands made of much older, more experienced people that have been around the block a few times.

At the Gilman show on Friday night a weird guy in a baseball hat and shorts, carrying Lizzy McGuire posters was selling Angry Samoans shirts. Turns out it was Metal Mike, a firm Diskords fan. He even sung "My Old Man's a Fatso" with the boys.

Saturday they played Sacramento with the FM Knives and Afflicttions (from Chicago). Being the old man that I am, we took off after the Afflictions, before the FM Knives. The Afflictions were rumored to be a hot R&B/Soul influenced band, like many sprouting up around the country these days. They were decent, but the complete lack of any low-end (no bass and only a small, punk-sized drum kit) left me doing the Stand Still all night. Rhythm, a really strong rhythm section, is the foundation of R&B and Soul music, it's what puts the itch in your underwear. Unfortunately, the Afflictions didn't have it.

When I wasn't driving around the Bay Area with Mimi to hang out with 14 year olds, I was hunched over my computer, trying to make my self-imposed deadline (of Sunday night) to finish the redesign of my website. I made it, with time to spare. The rest of the night I was left lurching around, wheels still spinning in high gear. Even this morning I woke at 7:30 and got immediately to work on a editing photos from the last Discount tour. I don't know what I'm going to do with them (a zine? website?) but figure I should do something with them.

SIDENOTE:
-->The I-94 Bar is selling reprooductions of the amazing Radio Birdman Blitzkrieg posters. They're limited to 100 copies and signed by Deniz & Rob. Get one while you can.

LISTENING:
Have Nots - s/t LP (Repent)

2003-07-30T09:43:00.000-07:00

Still kind of working out the kinks in this Blog. This design, while dapper, does not allow me to add permanent links on the side of the page. I'm not savvy enough to figure out how to change the template from under the hood. So, for now, no permanent links. Not a big deal since so far Mitch Cardwell is the only person whom I have told about this site.

If I had links, I would include ABC's political-nerd fix, The Note. Because as much as I love music, I am also a sad-sack news junkie, fixated like a wayward housewife and her soaps. So don't be too shocked if a fair amount of politics and news wanders into my posts.

When I get out of the deep financial hole in which I am currently residing, I plan on forking out the dough to upgrade so I can post photos. More than writing about music, I like taking pictures of bands. For instance, tonight and probably tomorrow I am going to see the Lost Sounds. Rather than just writing about the show, I'd prefer to post a photo or two or three. And wouldn't it be great to post scans of record covers along with the reviews?

Which reminds me, the new issue of Hamburger Eyes is out. I have a handful of photos from India in the new issue. One of the better photo zines going. Get it at Needles & Pins in San Francisco, or order from Ray directly through the website.

So, music. Let's get started.

Mitch is my ear to the ground. He's the kind of guy who, if we were in a cowboy movie, he'd put his ear to the railroad track and say, "the train is coming!" I'd look down the track, all the way to the horizon and only see tumbleweeds and cacti. Then, 15 minutes later, sure enough, the train would come, we'd rob it and make off with the loot. Not only does Mitch have a good grasp of things coming and going, he's got good taste in music. I mention this only because a lot of the tips and recommendations I get comes from him. Just giving credit where it's due.

Steve Shaw, of Detroit Cobras fame has a new band, the Fondas. Listening to their debut album, Coming Now! (Sympathy) just makes me want to put on a Detroit Cobras record. It makes sense. Guitar guy from the Cobras starts a new band, a five piece that only covers old R&B and sould songs, with a sultry female singer up front. Julie Benjamin has a good voice, but sort of in the same way that Rachel Nagy (of the Cobras) didn't really hit her stride until the second album, Benjamin comes off as, well, being good but not great. Not forceful enough, or not really making a distinctive mark. I can't pin it down. But listening to this album just makes me think back to when I first listened to the first Cobras album and was left decidedly unimpressed. Filed it away and forgot about it. When Life, Love and Leaving hit my turntable, I hit the floor.

The real shame in the Fondas album (and the band as a whole) is they are going to forever live in the shadow of the Detroit Cobras, constantly compared and measured against them. It's valid and almost inescapable. In the end it sort of comes down to the frontwomen, whose voice, whose style do you like better? The the cigarette-stained, tough love of Rachel Nagy or the more demur, silky sound or Julie Benjamin. Me, I still prefer the Cobras, but that doesn't mean this album isn't worth its weight in vinyl. Think of it as a compliment to the Detroit Cobras, don't settle for just one or the other. Even if they have to endure endless comparisons, the Fondas stand firmly on their own two (or, uh, ten) feet.

A few final notes...as Chris Brown recently reminded me, there is a new Lester Bangs book due out soon! It's called Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader, edited by John Morthland. Due 12 August, here's the description from Amazon:

Serving as a companion to the 1987 collection Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, this volume is a selection of 54 pieces, some of which have been recently uncovered. In his introduction, Morthland, a writer-at-large for Texas Monthly, offers a paean to Bangs, who died in 1982 of a drug overdose, describing him as the "best-known bull-in-a-china-shop... who was always dangerously loaded, who could be so insulting and malicious as well as self-destructive... who had an expansive lust for life and a sense of humor and (sometimes even, and for no apparent reason) cheerfulness to match it." Within these pages, the acerbic Bangs takes on Dylan ("Dylan merely used Civil Rights and the rest of the Movement to advance himself in the first place") and encourages the Stones in a 1973 Creem article ("I challenge those lazy, sniveling, winded mothermissers to PRODUCE"). There's plenty here to entertain music fans and inspire today's critics of rock and roll.

It is required reading.

Also! The club once know as Mabhuay Gardens, the Fab Mab, now the Velvet Lounge (430 Broadway, in North Beach, SF), is again doing shows. MRR's own limey Tim Brooks kicks things off DJing this Thursday night at 9 p.m. Catch him there, then get to the Bottom of the Hill to see the Lost Sounds.

2003-06-17T19:51:00.000-07:00

It's the end of July, just three more days until August. Though the calendar gives us another month and a half of summer, I can already feel it winding down. School begins in close to three weeks.

The beginning. I put out a zine for a long time, which included a lot of music reviews, some short, some long. From there, I started working for MRR, then got a "real" job writing about music for an Internet company. Thirty reviews a day, five days a week. All kinds of music. Punk, oldies, christian alternative, hard rock, R&B, country, grunge, 35 year-old guys living out their fantasies of being in Rush...you get the idea. And somewhere along the way I started writing for Blank Generation. Once in a while, i'd do something for a local weekly. It was a lot. A lot of writing about music. Too much.

As one might expect, I got really burnt out. Everything started sounding the same. Even when I just wanted to put on a record to listen to while I was in my darkroom, I'd start dissecting it, cut it open, looking at its guts. It'd be like if I were a surgeon and instead of just having a conversation with someone I felt the need to cut them open and find out how their vocal chords, brains and mouth worked to make words. I had to stop. So I did.

But the itch is still there. I don't write for MRR anymore (Mitch Cardwell now does the column I once wrote). I quit my Internet job to go to grad school, to become a photojournalist. Blank Generation, abandoned. The weeklies gave up on me and I don't forsee doing another issue of my zine anytime soon. So here I am. Inspired by Jay Hinman's music-blog, Agony Shorthand and Jeroen Vedder's Captain's Log (he now writes for The Next Big Thing) I finally decided to start this, another Blog about music.

Welcome and enjoy.